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Telegraph
02-08-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Former Dragons' Den star stripped of MBE over string of unpaid bills
A former Dragons' Den star has been stripped of her MBE after it was ruled she was in contempt of court. Julie Meyer, a 58-year old venture capitalist, was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence after she repeatedly failed to submit documents and attend hearings relating to £200,000 in unpaid legal fees. The Cabinet Office's recently published list of individuals who have forfeited the honour since August 2023 says Meyer was stripped of the MBE for 'bringing the honours system into disrepute'. She is one of two women on the list, the other being Paula Vennells, the former Post Office chief executive who forfeited her CBE over her handling of the Horizon IT scandal. Meyer, who was born in the US, was awarded the MBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours list for services to entrepreneurship. She was one of two new Dragons chosen for an online version of the BBC Two show in 2009, and was appointed as Lord Cameron's enterprise adviser in 2010. However, in 2022 she became embroiled in a legal fight with Farrers, a law firm who once represented the late Queen Elizabeth II. A warrant was then issued for her arrest after she failed to turn up to court on Feb 14 that year. Meyer said she had been unable to travel from her home in Switzerland due to conjunctivitis and not having received a Covid vaccine. But a judge ruled her medical evidence was not grounds to avoid attending the court hearings in person. It was claimed she owed Farrers almost £200,000, which represented her in a court case in Malta. The High Court heard she failed to pay Julian Pike, a partner at Farrers, £197,000 after claiming the firm had provided a poor standard of service which had been worth about £50,000. Mr Justice Kerr labelled Meyer a 'selfish and untrustworthy person'. He said: 'I am satisfied there is every prospect that the defendant will continue to flout orders of the court unless coerced into obeying them.'
Daily Mail
02-08-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Dragons' Den venture capitalist is stripped of MBE after being held in contempt of court over unpaid £200,000 legal bill
Former Dragons' Den star Julie Meyer has been stripped of her MBE three years after she was scolded by a British judge for being 'selfish' after refusing to turn up to court or pay her lawyers, it has been revealed. The venture capitalist, 58, was handed a six-month suspended sentence for contempt of court after she repeatedly failed to submit documents and attend hearings relating to £200,000 in unpaid fees to her solicitors, Farrer & Co. Meyer was awarded an MBE in 2012 for her services to entrepreneurship and was invited to sit on two government advisory panels that year. Yet last night it emerged she has forfeited the award for 'bringing the honours system into disrepute'. Her name appears alongside 11 others on a newly-updated list published by the Cabinet Office of individuals stripped of their prestigious gongs since August 2023. At least six of these - all men - were stripped after being convicted of child sex offences, while the others were found guilty of misconduct or acting inappropriately. They include nuclear submarine captain Commander Iain Fergusson who was handed an OBE despite being the subject of a major sex abuse and bullying probe, and former senior Army officer Andrew Whiddett, who was convicted of asking mothers in the Philippines to sexually abuse their children in front of him on a webcam. Meyer is also one of only two women on the infamous list in recent years - the other being former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells, who forfeited a CBE for her handling of the Horizon IT scandal. She now joins a roll of shamed individuals that more recently include Grime star Wiley, who made anti-Semitic remarks and likened Jews to the Ku Klux Klan, paralympian Anthony Griffin, who was jailed for dealing heroin and PR guru Anthony Bailey, who was found in contempt for breaching a divorce agreement. Despite her being stripped of the title, she is still styling herself as having an MBE on her multiple websites and LinkedIn. The American-born businesswoman was hailed as one of two new Dragons chosen for an online version of the BBC Two show in 2009 and she formerly advised David Cameron 's government. Meyer was lauded for her business instinct and supported major internet and tech brands early on in their development, including and Skype. But her name hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2022 when she became embroiled in a legal fight with Farrers, the law firm engaged by the late Queen Elizabeth II. When she failed to turn up to a court hearing on Valentine's Day that year, the judge dramatically issued a warrant for her arrest. Controversially, the entrepreneur said she had been unable to travel from her home in Switzerland due to conjunctivitis and not having received a Covid vaccine. But it was ruled her medical evidence was not grounds to avoid attending the court hearings in person. She was said to owe almost £200,000 to Farrers, which represented her in a court case in Malta. The High Court heard she failed to pay Farrer partner Julian Pike £197,000, claiming the firm had provided a poor standard of service, which had been worth about £50,000. When Meyer was handed a six-month suspended sentence, Mr Justice Kerr said she had shown herself 'to be a selfish and untrustworthy person'. The judge said: 'I am satisfied there is every prospect that the defendant will continue to flout orders of the court unless coerced into obeying them.' He added that some of the evidence filed on Meyer's behalf sought to show her as 'too important for the courts of England and Wales to take precedent over her other interests'. In her defence, Meyer said the law firm had 'abused their privileged position as the Queen's lawyers' and claimed they had 'harassed' her and her firm. She lost an appeal to overturn the suspended prison sentence later that year. On her website, she claims to have secured £880million in capital investment and boasts of her 'royal recognition' — her MBE. The American moved to London in July 1998 and made millions from the $50million sale of her firm First Tuesday, a networking group for entrepreneurs and investors, in July 2000. In her Dragons' Den biography, she was described as a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow, an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and a regular speaker on entrepreneurship and leadership. The Daily Mail has contacted Meyer for comment. The other new individuals revealed as having forfeited their honours include child sex abuser Wayne O'Donnell, 66, from North Yorkshire, who was jailed for 18 years for raping and sexually abusing two young girls. His MBE, awarded in 1994, has now been taken away from him. Priest Timothy Biles, 89, of Sherborne, Dorset, was stripped of his MBE after being found guilty of sexually assaulting boys in the 1960s at St Francis School in Hooke, leading to him being handed a six-year jail sentence last December. Disgraced former senior Army officer Andrew Whiddett, 76, of Portsmouth, was jailed in 2019 for asking mothers in the Philippines to sexually abuse their children in front of him on a webcam. Whiddett had served in the forces with distinction for 30 years and 'dedicated his life to the country' before moving into security in the Middle East - including working at the British Embassy in Baghdad. He has now forfeited the MBE he was handed in 1988. Former choirmaster and teacher David Pickthall pleaded guilty last October to a series of child sexual offences spanning his career of more than 40 years. Essex Police said he was charged as part of an investigation into alleged offences against 19 people between 1980 and 2021 in Brentwood and Upminster. The former teacher has been stripped of his MBE awarded in 2015 for services to education and charity. Commander Iain Fergusson, the former captain of HMS Vigilant, faced a barrage of bullying and sex abuse complaints brought by whistleblower Sophie Brooke last year. He was cleared of alleged sexual assault by putting his penis in Lt Brook's pocket, but other claims were substantiated, including that he licked her ear, blew on her neck and punched her in the kidneys during periscope training. Cdr Fergusson has now had to hand back the OBE he controversially received while the claims were being probed in 2024. Christian youth festival founder Mike Pilavachi, 67, who established Soul Survivor Anglican Church in 1995, stepped down from the ministry after allegations surfaced two years ago that he wrestled with young men and gave them 'oil massages' while they were in their underwear. He has now forfeited the MBE he was given in 2020. World-renowned classical music conductor Jan Latham-Koenig, 71, was caught in a police sting at London Victoria train station last January after arranging to meet what he believed was a 14-year-old boy he had met on a dating site. But the boy was an undercover police officer posing as a child. He was given a 14-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and has now forfeited the OBE he received in 2020 for services to music and UK-Russian cultural relations. Maths teacher Dr Richard Evans was also forced to hand back the OBE he received for fundraising during Covid after he was found guilty of misconduct. Wayne O'Donnell (left) lost his MBE after he was jailed for raping and sexually abusing two girls, while former Salford priest Peter Conniffe (right) lost his MBE after he was found to have sexually abused a 15-year-old girl during the late 1970s The former deputy of Copland Community School in Wembley, west London, was one of four staff members and two governors accused of defrauding the school to the tune of £2.7million in bonuses. Evans was found to have received unauthorised and excessive bonuses totalling £180,000. Former Salford priest Peter Conniffe was stripped of his MBE for 'bringing the honours system into disrepute' after an investigation found he groomed and sexually abused a 15-year-old girl during the late 1970s, before raping her when she was 24. In 2019 he wrote a letter of apology to the woman, which was made public. Harry Legg, a former Acting Sheriff and Justice of the Peace for St Helena, was jailed for five-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to the historical sexual assault of young boys - resulting in the loss of his OBE. Sean Cox was stripped of the MBE he received in 1999 after receiving a criminal conviction.
The Independent
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
First Post Office inquiry report stops short of attributing blame
The first tranche of the Post Office inquiry's final report has stopped short of attributing blame for the scandal. The chairman of the probe Sir Wyn Williams said the human impact of the Horizon saga 'should be placed at the forefront' of his final report and it was important to publish his conclusions on that issue as soon as possible. Sir Wyn elected to make his findings on the compensation processes and the devastating impact the scandal had on subpostmasters on Tuesday. His conclusions on who was at fault for overseeing the scandal are expected in the coming months. That report is expected to scrutinise the role of Post Office bosses who oversaw the scandal, including former priest Paula Vennells. Ms Vennells previously told the inquiry she was 'too trusting' and had 'no sense there was any conspiracy at all', but also admitted she made 'mistakes'. The first tranche did tease what his overarching conclusions would include, saying Post Office bosses should have known Horizon was faulty but 'maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate'. In the introduction of his report, Sir Wyn said: 'I have formed the view… that the impact upon those affected, the 'human impact', should be placed at the forefront of my report to the minister. 'That is why I have decided to publish this volume of my report as soon as it was completed rather than wait for the whole of my report to be ready for publication. 'It also seemed to me to be natural to combine my description of the suffering endured by so many with my assessments of, and conclusions about, the attempts by the Post Office, the minister and the Department to provide redress to those affected which is 'full, fair and prompt'.'
The Independent
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Post Office bosses ‘maintained fiction' Horizon was accurate, inquiry concludes
Post Office bosses should have known Horizon was faulty but 'maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate' when prosecuting subpostmasters, the first tranche of a public inquiry's final report has concluded. Chairman Sir Wyn Williams said 'a number of senior' people at the organisation were aware the system, known as Legacy Horizon, was capable of error up until it was changed in 2010, with a number of employees also aware the updated system, Horizon Online, also had bugs and defects. A total of 59 victims of the Horizon scandal contemplated suicide with 10 attempting to take their own lives, Sir Wyn's final report concluded. He said there was a 'real possibility' 13 people took their own lives as a result of the suffering they endured during the scandal. Sir Wyn said around 10,000 people are eligible to submit compensation claims following what has been dubbed as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history. Lead campaigner and former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton said the report 'shows the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us'. The scandal was propelled into the spotlight in January last year following the airing of ITV's drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, starring actor Toby Jones about Sir Alan Bates, former sub-postmaster and founder of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. Ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells is accused of overseeing a huge number of wrongful prosecutions and convictions, and was in post at the time Sir Wyn said bosses should have known Horizon was faulty. The chairman's 162-page report criticised the 'unnecessarily adversarial attitude' of the Post Office and its advisers towards making compensation offers to victims and that the organisation and the Government 'simply failed to grasp how difficult it would be to provide appropriate financial redress.' Approximately 1,000 people were wrongly prosecuted and convicted throughout the UK between 1999 and 2015 as a result of faulty Fujitsu software, with a significant number contemplating self-harm, the report said. Sir Wyn also singled out the behaviour of Post Office investigators, saying subpostmasters 'will have been in wholly unfamiliar territory and they will have found the experience to be troubling at best and harrowing at worst'. The publication of the first tranche of the report on Tuesday focused solely on the devastating impact of the scandal on victims and the compensation offered to subpostmasters, with a further report potentially attributing blame expected at a later date. Teasing his conclusions for the final overarching report, which is still likely to be some months away, Sir Wyn said: 'Although many of the individuals who gave evidence before me were very reluctant to accept it, I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not-so-senior employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error. 'Yet for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.' Sir Wyn made a total of 19 recommendations as part of his report, including that the Government and the Post Office should make a public announcement about what they mean by 'full and fair redress'. In a statement issued after the publication of the report, Sir Wyn said he is 'critical' of the Post Office and the Government for the 'development and evolution' of the compensation schemes. He also said the main scheme, the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS), had been subjected to 'egregious delays'. In his recommendations, Sir Wyn said claimants who apply for compensation as part of HSS, should be entitled to free legal advice. The chairman also addressed criticism of another scheme, the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme, saying claimants should be entitled to the £600,000 fixed offer even if they submit their own detailed individual claim. Sir Wyn urged the Government to establish a public body to devise, administer and deliver compensation to those wronged by authorities. The report said the number of people eligible to submit compensation claims as part of the scandal is likely to rise 'by at least hundreds, if not more, over the coming months'. In a statement, the Post Office said: 'The inquiry has brought to life the devastating stories of those impacted by the Horizon Scandal. 'Their experiences represent a shameful period in our history. 'Today, we apologise unreservedly for the suffering which Post Office caused to postmasters and their loved ones. 'We will carefully consider the report and its recommendations.'
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Post Office bosses ‘maintained fiction' Horizon was accurate, inquiry concludes
Post Office bosses should have known Horizon was faulty but 'maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate' when prosecuting subpostmasters, the first tranche of a public inquiry's final report has concluded. Chairman Sir Wyn Williams said 'a number of senior' people at the organisation were aware the system, known as Legacy Horizon, was capable of error up until it was changed in 2010, with a number of employees also aware the updated system, Horizon Online, also had bugs and defects. A total of 59 victims of the Horizon scandal contemplated suicide with 10 attempting to take their own lives, Sir Wyn's final report concluded. He said there was a 'real possibility' 13 people took their own lives as a result of the suffering they endured during the scandal. Sir Wyn said around 10,000 people are eligible to submit compensation claims following what has been dubbed as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history. Lead campaigner and former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton said the report 'shows the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us'. The scandal was propelled into the spotlight in January last year following the airing of ITV's drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, starring actor Toby Jones about Sir Alan Bates, former sub-postmaster and founder of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. Ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells is accused of overseeing a huge number of wrongful prosecutions and convictions, and was in post at the time Sir Wyn said bosses should have known Horizon was faulty. The chairman's 162-page report criticised the 'unnecessarily adversarial attitude' of the Post Office and its advisers towards making compensation offers to victims and that the organisation and the Government 'simply failed to grasp how difficult it would be to provide appropriate financial redress.' Approximately 1,000 people were wrongly prosecuted and convicted throughout the UK between 1999 and 2015 as a result of faulty Fujitsu software, with a significant number contemplating self-harm, the report said. Sir Wyn also singled out the behaviour of Post Office investigators, saying subpostmasters 'will have been in wholly unfamiliar territory and they will have found the experience to be troubling at best and harrowing at worst'. The publication of the first tranche of the report on Tuesday focused solely on the devastating impact of the scandal on victims and the compensation offered to subpostmasters, with a further report potentially attributing blame expected at a later date. Teasing his conclusions for the final overarching report, which is still likely to be some months away, Sir Wyn said: 'Although many of the individuals who gave evidence before me were very reluctant to accept it, I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not-so-senior employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error. 'Yet for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.' Sir Wyn made a total of 19 recommendations as part of his report, including that the Government and the Post Office should make a public announcement about what they mean by 'full and fair redress'. He also said claimants who apply for compensation as part of the main scheme, the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, should be entitled to free legal advice. The chairman also addressed criticism of another scheme, the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme, saying claimants should be entitled to the £600,000 fixed offer even if they submit their own detailed individual claim. Sir Wyn urged the Government to establish a public body to devise, administer and deliver compensation to those wronged by authorities. The report said the number of people eligible to submit compensation claims as part of the scandal is likely to rise 'by at least hundreds, if not more, over the coming months'. In a statement, the Post Office said: 'The inquiry has brought to life the devastating stories of those impacted by the Horizon Scandal. 'Their experiences represent a shameful period in our history. 'Today, we apologise unreservedly for the suffering which Post Office caused to postmasters and their loved ones. 'We will carefully consider the report and its recommendations.'
